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Parks: Neighborhood Walmart brings many benefits

Athens is a very special place. National surveys and articles consistently recognize Athens as a top-rated community where people want to live, visit, work and retire.

Naturally, the myriad resources and attractions that make Athens so special also make it a magnet for a socioeconomically diverse and growing population with all the attendant and predictable needs and desires.

This vibrant city has consistently shown a unique civic spirit of engagement and a commitment to meeting the needs of all its residents and ensuring that Athens remains a model community. To facilitate this high level of community resolve, Athens’ leaders recognize that we need aggressive economic development, job creation and, in particular, the revitalization of key opportunity zones adjacent to our downtown business district.

Selig Enterprises has stepped up at just the right time with an exciting mixed-use development proposal for the downtown area that will provide an outstanding private-sector solution to an obvious and ongoing public-private development need. This is the right development at the right time and in the right place.

Walmart is the anchor that makes this project viable, while also providing the immensely positive attributes for which the company and its employees are renowned.

As with any new development, including Walmart, there has been some controversy. However, facts dispel concerns of a vocal minority of local residents and refute the claims of some critics.

Only a company that truly exemplifies its mission statement of “saving people money so they can live better” could have grown to be responsible for 10 percent of all retail sales in America in the extremely competitive retail marketplace.

Many Athenians who live near the proposed Walmart and don’t have ready access to groceries and quality general merchandise at affordable prices will indeed save money and live better. Athenians, including those on limited or fixed incomes, will vote with their feet, as so many Georgians already do at their local Walmart.

The jobs Walmart will provide here are critically needed and will provide growth opportunities for many of our residents. Over 50,000 Walmart employees in Georgia today earn competitive wages and excellent benefits including 401(k) programs with immediate vesting matches of up to 6 percent, health, life and dental insurance and profit-sharing incentives.

A community committed to creating opportunities for all its residents will clearly benefit from Walmart, which could provide young people with a high school diploma — who currently face an unemployment rate of more than 20 percent — with an employment option.

In fact, Walmart employees in Georgia reflect the diversity of Athens. The manager of the company’s newest store, in Savannah, started with Walmart in 1998 as an hourly sales associate.

Then there are the part-timers, like a couple, both 63, who work at different stores in metro Atlanta. They choose to work the same hours three days a week, and they’ve turned down promotions to full-time positions. Still, they receive excellent benefits, enjoy their employee discount and earn premium pay for working Sundays.

The manager at one of their stores is a 38-year-old University of Georgia graduate. Also, Athens native Kirsten Sweaney Evans, a 1990 Cedar Shoals High School graduate, is vice president of marketing in Walmart’s Arkansas headquarters, and at least two other senior executives are UGA graduates. Walmart has a proven reputation for promoting from within.

Fortune magazine has perennially rated Walmart as one of America’s Most Admired Companies and the No. 1 Most Admired Retailer. This year’s Fortune survey noted, “The world’s largest retailer is also, by many counts the world’s greenest retailer.”

Likewise, the company has exhibited proven leadership in community service and donations to local causes, which will be critically important to efforts here in Athens. Walmart has also made a public commitment of $2 billion to end hunger in America.

While I wish we could magically have the Selig project and the new Walmart open for business today, I also know there will be hundreds of direct jobs and many indirect jobs and economic benefits flowing from the construction phase.

I’m confident the vast majority of stakeholders in Athens want to bring this project to fruition and avoid unnecessary delays. The quicker we break ground, the better for all of us in Athens-Clarke County.

• Carl Parks is a member of the economic development task force appointed by Mayor Nancy Denson. Parks also serves on the Banner-Herald’s community advisory board. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of either the task force or the advisory board.

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